The Houston Rockets went all out after defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers by two points on Sunday, even going so far as to declare James Harden "the new King James" after having vanquished LeBron James in regular-season battle. Unfortunately for Harden, it looks like he will see some punishment for deposing the old monarch. The NBA announced Monday that Harden has been suspended one game for kicking James in the groin with 2:08 remaining in the third quarter. Harden was issued a flagrant-1 foul during the game, but that has since been upgraded to a flagrant-2. Harden will miss the Rockets' Tuesday game at the Atlanta Hawks, another East contender. [ Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball ] Take a look at the play: Many of you may watch that video and consider the suspension excessive considering that Harden did not exactly strike LeBron with the greatest of force. However, kicking another man — let alone a fellow All-NBA First Team member — in the nether regions is typically considered very bad form. The NBA does its best to protect its best and most popular players, and a four-time MVP and global icon certainly qualifies as such. While Harden is one of the two or three top candidates for MVP this season, he's not going to get away with such a move on a player of James's caliber. LeBron earned a lot of negative attention on Sunday for missing a pair of free throws down one point in the final seconds of overtime, but it appears that the league office paid attention when he indicated that Harden's flagrant foul was in need of further review . It would be wrong to suggest that the NBA suspended Harden simply because LeBron is LeBron — again, it's not so nice to kick anyone in the groin — but people tend to listen when James talks. Regardless, Harden will certainly be missed for Tuesday's game with Atlanta. Houston is already playing without star center Dwight Howard, who has been on the shelf since early February with a problematic right knee. Harden is an MVP frontrunner for a reason — the Rockets' offense revolves around him — and playing without him on the road against one of the NBA's most balanced squads is not a recipe for success. - - - - - - - Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @FreemanEric

Jimmy Butler has joined the perpetually revolving crew of Chicago Bull contributors that are working through nasty injuries. Butler, typically a workhorse, left Sunday’s Chicago loss to the Los Angeles Clippers with a sprained left elbow. On Monday, his team learned the full extent of his injury: Chicago's Jimmy Butler could miss 3-4 weeks with elbow sprain, but won't need surgery, league sources tell Yahoo Sports. — Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) March 2, 2015 A later Bulls press release pegged the ulnar ligament sprain as possibly keeping Butler out for three to six weeks. [ Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball ] Despite playing the entirety of the 2014-15 season with a badly sprained left thumb, Butler emerged in his fourth season to become an NBA All-Star , a Most Improved Player award front-runner , and even a (regional, but still) Sports Illustrated cover boy . His points per game average has shot up to over 20 a contest, he ranks fifth in the NBA in free throws attempted per game, he rarely turns the ball over, and he’s been good for almost six rebounds a contest. Butler is leading the NBA in minutes per game at 38.9, and appeared no worse for the wear – unlike some of the other Bulls contributors that coach Tom Thibodeau hands endless and needless minutes to. Due to his new batch of offensive responsibilities, Butler isn’t quite the dominant defender that we saw last year, when the third-year player managed to make the NBA’s All-Defensive Second Team. He’s still as good as they come defensively at the swingman spot, however, and the Bulls will badly miss him on both ends of the court. Of course, because these are the Bulls, they will try to chip away at that “three to six week”-diagnosis: Source said Butler will be evaluated on a weekly basis and could be back before 3 weeks. But definitely out extended period. — K.C. Johnson (@KCJHoop) March 2, 2015 This is what this organization does, and in repeatedly drafting dogged types like Butler, Taj Gibson, and Joakim Noah, they’ve aligned themselves with a series of players that don’t mind playing through injury. Gibson himself has been playing through a sprained ligament in his left hand for weeks, but it took a serious ankle sprain to put him on the shelf recently. Noah, meanwhile, underwent what was clearly a serious knee operation in May, 2014 – one that he was clearly still feeling the aftereffects of even in the 2015 calendar year. The Bulls initially reported that Noah underwent a “minor” operation, even though the surgery was set to keep him off the court for eight to 12 weeks. Chicago’s status in the Central Division was all but assured when the Cleveland Cavaliers got their act together and began the 18-4 run that currently has them just a half-game in back of Chicago. The Bulls have lost two of three since Derrick Rose went down with what could be yet another season-ending knee injury, but as is always the case with the Bulls, it is possible that they can circle the wagons. A three-week return for Butler could have the All-Star missing 12 games. If Chicago can split those contests, and if the fifth-seeded Washington Wizards continue at their current pace, it is possible that the Bulls will only fall to the fourth seed upon Butler’s hoped-for late-March return. With LeBron and company rampaging as they are, Chicago was always likely to relinquish that spot atop the Central, and the third seed that goes along with it, so the damage might not be all that great. It is possible that Kirk Hinrich could slide into the starting spot in Butler’s absence, as coach Tom Thibodeau’s security blanket can play both guard spots, but the veteran has missed 16 of 22 attempts from the field in Rose’s absence thus far. Luckily for Bulls fans, second-year swingman Tony Snell had a fantastic February – the youngster came out of Thibodeau’s doghouse to hit 58 percent of his shots on the month, and he hit three three-pointers in the loss to the Clippers on Sunday. He should and likely will start. Bulls rookie Doug McDermott, whom the team traded two draft picks (one that became standout Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic) to select last June, hasn’t been a part of Thibodeau’s rotation since the first week of November. The Bulls coach has failed to develop or take chances on the shooter out of Creighton, to the source of much consternation from fans and likely the team’s front office. With Butler’s 39 minutes a contest taken away, Thibodeau will be forced to rely on more than Snell, Hinrich, and veteran Mike Dunleavy to make up for his absence. McDermott will have to play, and he’ll have to contribute as he did earlier in his frustrating season – Doug hit for 16 of his first 30 shots as a pro before Thibodeau took him out of the rotation. The Bulls haven’t been able to keep their injuries on the same page this season. Joakim Noah has finally rounded into an approximation of his former self, but it took him half of 2014-15 to get there. Derrick Rose was looking like a B-version of his former self in the days prior to his most recent knee injury. Butler started the season with an injured hand and he’ll miss at least a good chunk of the home stretch with the bum elbow. The Bulls were 9-10 with Dunleavy on the bench with an ankle injury, Gibson has been banged up all season, and McDermott missed weeks following a secretive (and possibly career-altering) snipping of his meniscus. The Bulls can keep their heads above water, especially as Washington continues to fritter away its season. That much is in place. Butler’s return is worrying, however. It wasn’t the element of surprise that allowed him to develop into a 20-point scorer, but the weight of expectations upon his comeback might be a bit much. He might forget what it took to stay in the moment and build his box score bucket by bucket. His work ethic and ability will be in place once he returns to live action, that’s not the fear in this instance. It’s the expectation, one that asks him to keep with that uptick in usage and flip the switch toward 20 points instead of 11 per game. Recovering from this injury won’t be a problem for Jimmy Butler. Returning as an All-Star could be, however. - - - - - - - Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops

Remember all the way back in the great month of February, when JaVale McGee swore up and down that he wanted to be part of the Philadelphia 76ers’ rebuilding plan? That he wanted to mentor the team’s young big men, and that he wasn’t the type to go chasing for a ring? Confronted with the ability to make all the money he is owed – the rest of the $11.25 million he’s set to take in this year, and $12 million in 2015-16 – while being afforded the luxury to hop to whatever team will have him, McGee has now decided to leave those poor and mentor-less Sixer bigs to the wolves. [ Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball ] Philadelphia officially bought him out on Monday afternoon, after Sam Amick of USA Today first reported that the two sides were looking to officially part ways. From Amick : Players waived by March 1 can still sign with teams that compete in the postseason, meaning the 27-year-old McGee will likely have a fruitful market when he clears waivers. Whether it's a new job with one of the Texas teams (San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets), the Miami Heat or another contender, McGee has every reason to be enthused about what lies ahead — especially considering he didn't give any money back. As you’ll recall, this flies in the face of what JaVale told Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer just last week : "I don't want to get bought out," said McGee, a 27-year-old in his seventh NBA season. "That's not a positive thing. When you think about it, you don't get all of your money when you get bought out. "So it doesn't make sense why someone would want to get bought out unless they are older - older and they want to go to a contender or something. I'm not that old. I just want to play basketball.” Sixers coach Brett Brown was less enthusiastic about McGee’s time with the Sixers , especially after he came through with some rather pitiful basketball in his first few times out with the team, telling the press that “it's not going to be on us” if McGee didn’t work out in Philly. Because the Sixers only dealt for McGee’s massive contract in order to take on a first-round pick and approach the NBA’s minimum salary floor, the team wasn’t exactly looking at the 27-year old as a future cornerstone. McGee did get regular minutes in his six games with the 76ers, but he appeared woefully unprepared to take on the task of collecting the only things he knows how to pick up: JaVale managed just 13 rebounds and only one block in 61 minutes of play with the team. McGee has always been a careless, inconsistent, and often indifferent player that never seemed keen to build upon the physical gifts he’d been given, but at the very least you could count on him to corral some caroms or reject a few shots before slunking back off to acting a basketball ghost. Somehow, McGee has gone from a raw young prodigy to an older and less-appealing non-contributor in just a few years, without giving us that productive middle of a career that even the most frustrating project players seem to usually provide. And he’s certainly proven not to be worth that four-year, $44 million deal he signed back in 2012. McGee, who had played 22 total games in over a season and a half with Denver prior to the trade to Philadelphia, will now have his pick of the litter. He’ll also be playoff eligible, as Philadelphia cut ties with the 24th player to wear a Sixers uniform in 2014-15 prior to the postseason cutoff. Ten teams, mostly playoff contenders, have already expressed interest in free agent to be center JaVale McGee, a source told Yahoo Sports. — Marc J. Spears (@SpearsNBAYahoo) March 2, 2015 Despite his past transgressions, some playoff contender will take a chance on McGee, he’ll likely end up at the end of the team’s bench and hardly factor into the team’s postseason run, but he will be the biggest part of one or two second quarter runs off the bench – offering a batch of nationally televised blocks and throwdowns as fans in Washington, Denver and even Philadelphia roll their eyes. And he’ll be paid $12 million next year, as yet another team (possibly his fourth in six months) takes another chance at making a consistent contributor out of JaVale McGee. As always, good luck to both sides. - - - - - - - Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops